Drinking water could become post-Brexit “bargaining chip”

DRINKING water could be an “important bargaining chip” for Wales post-Brexit, an academic has said.

Janet Dwyer said the country’s abundant rainfall was often noted by UK Government officials, and that around half of Birmingham’s drinking water originated this side of the border.

Professor Dwyer was addressing a rural affairs conference in Carmarthen on the implications of Brexit for agriculture, land use and rural areas in Wales.

She said climate change predictions indicated that North Wales would become wetter and areas of South Wales drier.

“Drinking water is an important potential bargaining chip for Wales,” she said.

Professor Dwyer said poverty in rural areas was significant but often “invisible”, but that Carmarthenshire’s rural economy was more diverse than others in Wales.

“Carmarthenshire has got a bit of everything - quite a lot of livestock farms, upland farming, some horticulture, a little bit of cropping, pigs and poultry,” she said.

“That can be a point of strength going forward.”

Estimates suggest Wales has around 35,000 smallholdings and 15,000 to 20,000 farms.

Professor Dywer, of Gloucester University, said farming was heavily dependent on public subsidies and that, generally speaking, dairy farming remained the most profitable enterprise.

She pointed out that tariffs after a no deal Brexit would work both ways, and that a further fall in the value of the pound could boost exports.

“If the UK economy goes down the pan, it could be good news for Welsh sheep,” she said, putting it simply.

Professor Dwyer, who is director of the Countryside and Community Research Institute, said Wales would benefit from a long-term food, natural resources and viable landscape scheme, with agreed targets.

She said the country was a beautiful place with fantastic assets and culture.

“That is priceless, really,” she said.